Ethereum Ready To Solve Blockchain Trilemma: Vitalik Buterin - Expert Insights

Ethereum's co-founder says PeerDAS and ZK-EVMs have solved crypto's scalability vs. security vs. decentralization trade-off.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin claims Ethereum has “solved” one of the biggest challenges in crypto: the blockchain trilemma.

In a X post on Saturday, Buterin emphasized the potential of peer data availability sampling (PeerDAS) and Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (ZK-EVMs), noting that these two upgrades are making Ethereum “a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of decentralized network.”

“Now, Ethereum with PeerDAS (2025) and ZK-EVMs (expect small portions of the network using it in 2026), we get: decentralized, consensus and high bandwidth,” he said, adding:

PeerDas is a scalability enhancement introduced in the Fusaka upgrade in December that enables Ethereum to handle significantly more data.

Meanwhile, ZKEVMs, which have been around for a while, are virtual machines compatible with both ZK proofs and the existing Ethereum virtual machine.

The Ethereum co-founder said that ZKEVMs are still in their “alpha stage,” as they are performance-ready but require additional security improvements. He has given a four-year timeline for ZKEVMs to be fully utilized within Ethereum.

Once this happens, Buterin says the vision of solving the trilemma will be officially realized.

“Over the next ~4 years, expect to see the full extent of this vision roll out: * In 2026, large non-ZKEVM-dependent gas limit increases due to BALs and ePBS, and we'll see the first opportunities to run a ZKEVM node*,” he said.

“In 2026-28, gas repricings, changes to state structure, exec payload going into blobs, and other adjustments to make higher gas limits safe * In 2027-30, large further gas limit increases, as ZKEVM becomes the primary way to validate blocks on the network,” he added.

Source: CoinTelegraph